Expressive Works on Paper Cartoon Formalism explores the 1960s and ‘70s. CARTOON FORMALISM in
the burgeoning counterculture
the Works on Paper gallery
of the times.
explores how artists returned
The use of the word ‘cartoon’
to figurative expression in
in the exhibition title refers to
the 1960s.
the sketch-like immediacy of
The style began with the Bay
the artist’s hand. “While the
Area Figurative Movement in
subject matter varies from
San Francisco in the 1950s,
pets to social satire, the work
where artists like Joan Brown
conveys something personal or
and Richard Diebenkorn
intimate, functioning in a similar
developed a whimsical, more
fashion to a diary,” says Bratton,
figurative style. Other works
who curated the exhibition.
featured in Cartoon Formalism
Funk is an intensely personal
come from the San Francisco
process, contrasting the formal
Funk era, which evolved par-
characteristics of the happy
allel to the Beatnik movement
cartoon to address intense and
in the late 1950s, and blended
serious topics. Other artists
pop culture with cartoonish
featured in Cartoon Formalism
drawings. Roy De Forest prints,
include Robert Colescott, Andy
for example, feature narrative
Warhol, and William T. Wiley.
scenes in vivid colors, often depicting dogs and people. In fact, it was the De Forest
Carol Summers, Burning Mountain (#88/100), date unknown, color lithograph, gift of Dr. and Mrs. Richard Cronin
Artist Jim Melchert described funk as an “attempt to resolve those two essences
print in the Albuquerque
of mankind: one a striving
Museum permanent collec-
toward perfectibility, the other
tion that sparked Preparator
a kind of gross realization that
Chris Bratton to start a list of
we’re all just animals.” This
artists with a similar aesthetic.
exhibition will be the first time
“The idea really solidified after
most of this work is displayed.
Titus O’Brien, then-assistant curator of art, and I were he says. While not directly
ON VIEW
connected, both figurative
OPENS FEBRUARY 1
expressionist art and psyche-
Cartoon Formalism
talking about psychedelic art,”
delic art began in the Bay Area and were outgrowths of 8
WINTER 2020
Art. History. People.
John Altoon, Tamarind #1, 1965, lithograph, Albuquerque Museum, gift of Jeri Coates
